Wednesday, December 31, 2014

NYTimes | Let’s review the actions that Mr. de Blasio’s harshest critics say have driven the police to such extremes.

He campaigned on ending the unconstitutional use of “stop-and-frisk”
tactics, which victimized hundreds of thousands of innocent young black
and Latino men.

He called for creating an inspector general for the department and ending racial profiling.

After Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, was killed by a swarm of cops
on Staten Island, he convened a meeting with the police commissioner,
William Bratton, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, giving Mr. Sharpton greater
prominence than police defenders thought he should have had because Mr.
Sharpton is a firebrand with an unsavory past.

He said after the Garner killing that he had told his biracial son, Dante, to “take special care” in encounters with the police.

He generally condoned the peaceful protests for police reform — while
condemning those who incited or committed violence — and cited a tagline
of the movement: “Black lives matter.”

The
list of grievances adds up to very little, unless you look at it
through the magnifying lens of resentment fomented by union bosses and
right-wing commentators. The falling murder rate, the increased
resources for the department, the end of quota-based policing, which the
police union despised, the mayor’s commitment to “broken-windows”
policing — none of that matters, because many cops have latched on to
the narrative that they are hated, with the mayor orchestrating the
hate.

It’s
a false narrative. Mr. de Blasio was elected by a wide margin on a
promise to reform the policing excesses that were found unconstitutional
by a federal court. He hired a proven reformer, Mr. Bratton, who had
achieved with the Los Angeles Police Department what needs doing in New
York. The furor that has gripped the city since the Garner killing has
been a complicated mess. But what New Yorkers expect of the Police
Department is simple:

1. Don’t violate the Constitution.

2. Don’t kill unarmed people.

To that we can add:

3.
Do your jobs. The police are sworn public servants, and refusing to
work violates their oath to serve and protect. Mr. Bratton should hold
his commanders and supervisors responsible, and turn this
insubordination around.